Related Tags:

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Crews worked to fix a water main break in the Beechview area.

It started a little after 6 a.m. in the 1300-block of West Liberty Avenue.

The water was flowing down the road and into the basement of the Matthews Bronze Building.

“This is the fourth one in more or less one year,” said Sandra Matson, Dir. of Manufacturing.

Fist shift workers at the Bronze Building did everything they could to keep the water out of their building again, as they built barriers and stacked sandbags along West Liberty Avenue.

“It’s hard to divert it,” Matson said. “Just by gravity, it will flow down and it will flow right into here.”

By daybreak, they had nearly a foot of water in their basement. That meant shutting down operations and sending 200 production employees home.

“It’s just to the point of being ridiculous,” Matson said. “It’s so frustrating you know when we have our employees come into work and we have orders that we need to get out to our customers and they are expecting us to ship them out on our promise date and we have to send everybody home.”

Because this is a recurring story, they had moved equipment and electrical outlets off the floor, but non of their signature bronze markers and monuments can be made and 600 time-sensitive orders won’t go out this Friday.

“Can we be up and running when the main is fixed?” Matson asked. “And then we have to make a decision do we work longer days, longer shifts, overtime, a Saturday, whatever it takes to make sure the customer orders out.”

Maintenance crew workers cleaned up the mess, but really what Matthews wants is for the problem to be fixed once and for all along West Liberty Avenue.